


A Stroke of the Pen

by ThePinkEgoBox



Category: Titanic (1997)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 07:18:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,225
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13266456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePinkEgoBox/pseuds/ThePinkEgoBox
Summary: What happens in the aftermath of the sinking of Titanic. How lives can be changed with such small actions. And how Jack and Rose would go on after it all.





	A Stroke of the Pen

Rose could hear the cries and calls of the people in the water around her and Jack getting quieter as they waiting for the boat to row back. She could barely think straight it was so cold, water in her hair and clothes freezing to ice. 

She blinked her eyes open, looking at Jack, looking so peaceful as if he was asleep. “Jack, when are the boats coming? Jack?” she shook at their joined hands, gently and then harder again, the shackle on his wrist clunking against the wood barely buoyant enough to keep her mostly out of the water. She knew that if she was this cold, Jack had to be even worse in the water.

“Jack!” Her voice was a rasp and she felt a slight squeeze from his hand, his eyes fluttering slightly. A knot of worry in the pit of her stomach uncoiled slightly as she saw him react, but he was so sluggish. She at least had a life belt and Cal’s coat.

“Can you climb?” She coaxed him, shaking him to rouse him further. “Get up Jack. Please. Wake up.” If she could just get him to climb further up with her, maybe they could find something else to brace them further. The officer that had been calling the boats back before had gone quiet some time ago, but she had seen him floating in swath of debris, mostly boxes and the like.

She had promised to not let go, it was the one thing that was pushing her forward, just survive, just make it a little longer, help would come. But right now, she didn’t see help coming and she needed to get to the boats. She could she flashes of light in the distance, searchlights moving over the water a ways off still, likely the location of the lifeboats huddling together in the icy emptiness of the Atlantic Ocean.

“I have to..” She wasn’t sure exactly what she needed to do, he thoughts were muddled by the freezing numbness. The officer, she recalled with a jolt. “Jack, wake up, climb up.” She managed to coax him further onto the wood while she slid with a splash into the water. It shocked her awake further but without the clarity of thought. Dimly she recalled the moment from just a few days prior.

“All you can think about is the pain of the cold” Jack had told her, making her rethink her ill-fated plan to leap from the deck of Titanic. It seemed ages ago at this point. She was sluggish as she tried to make her way to the officer, her wet dress weighing her down, tangling her legs as she tried to kick. Reaching the officer, she realized he was already dead, frozen in the water, clinging to a steamer trunk, whistle still between his lips. She pulled it from him, getting it tangled around his wrist where it was wrapped. 

“Please.” The word was more prayer than anything else, that last bit of hope offered to God above to give her the strength to do this. To save herself. To save Jack. The whistle came free with a sharp tug, the movement jostling the man from his frozen grip on the steamer trunk. It had been hardly buoyant under the weight of both of them, but as he started to slip into the water, it provided enough to the lighter Rose. 

A whistle, another bit of something to float on, perhaps enough to keep her alive just long enough. She kicked he way back, unable to feel her limbs in the cold, but a sense of something blooming inside of her. Hope, she had hope that she could do this. The lights she had seen were coming closer now, still maybe a hundred yards off, but perhaps now they would hear her, they could help. Faint shouting reaching her ears, she put the whistle to her lips, blowing as best she could, warbling trills finally making way to sharp blasts as she felt the thump of her new float hitting the wood Jack was floating on. She saw him stir, lifting himself up slightly, turning to watch her, reaching a hand over to clasp hers, fingers stiff and barely able to grasp each other.

All she could do now was cling to hope, pray that the lights of the far off boats reached them, could hear her whistle, would save them, that someone on a nearby ship was coming for them all.

 

~~

 

She hadn’t been aware of losing consciousness, at least not as she started to become aware that she was no longer floating in the icy water, wrapped in a slightly sodden bundle of wool blankets. It was the flash of the flares bursting overhead that brought her awareness back, she was staring up and the night sky, cold to her core, being jostled by the crew of the lifeboat as they hauled aboard another survivor, knocking roughly against another similarly wrapped person, the glint of metal at their wrist revealing the identity to be Jack, as he pulled his blanket tighter about himself.

She watched as the crew finished hauling the newcomer aboard, recognizing one of the cooks by his uniform, one of the last along with her and Jack to go down with the ship, clinging to the railing along with them as the water rushed up to pull them down.

Closing her eyes again, she drifted back into nothingness, content in the fact that she was found and being cared for, along with the man she risked everything for. She would worry about everything else when day broke. 

 

~~

 

It had been a hard day after being recused by the Carpathia. Doctors had seen to everyone according to class as they sorted them out, not that Rose could recall much of it, only that she was shuffled from one spot to the next, hot drinks placed in her hands when she was awake, Jack curled around her when she slept, the pair of them huddled for warmth after they began to dry, blankets swapped out by the Carpathia crew. 

It wasn’t until the next day had already dawned that Jack had started to wake up from his bout of hypothermia. A few of the rescued survivors had not, instead succumbing to the cold. Rose was eternally grateful that her prayers had been heard.

She had spotted Cal thankfully before she had been seen by him, tugging the blanket closer to her face and turning away before someone led him away. “Just the third class passengers here sir, she would have been brought to first class straightaway.”

If she was ever to escape Cal, she would have to be sure to never set foot near Philadelphia. Not that she had plans to ever approach that city ever. Instead, she looked forward to the things she had planned with Jack, to ride horses with him, to travel with him, live a life no longer bound in glittering chains crusted with diamonds. She would be free.

“What’s the smile for?” Jack asked her when he came stumbling back with assistance from another survivor, having just returned from another visit with the doctor overseeing what remained of the third class passengers. The metal of the shackles around his wrists had frozen around his skin and when the doctor had first removed them, had discovered some frostbite along with the painful removal of some tender skin. Overall however, they had both been very lucky to have survived. 

“Just the fact that I’m glad we are here, I’m happy to be free.” She beamed at him, pulling him into a kiss. He hummed lightly as they pulled apart again. “I know we won’t have much, but as long we have each other. Though I hope you didn’t have plans for Philadelphia.”

“No. We could start in New York, maybe make our way to Wisconsin, then move out all the way west to Santa Monica.” The rest of the day was spent in a haze of trying to plan out what would happen from this point forward, coming from so much to having so little would be a struggle that Rose knew she would have to get over. But if Jack had made it this far on so little, she was sure she could manage it.

She did of course express concerns about Cal looking for her, and likely looking for Jack as well. Hiding in third class and ducking under the cover of blankets would have to work for now, until they could escape into the crowds of New York. Every goal they set forth was a distant future, obtainable only after they reached the port.

Amongst the hope they each had for the future however, there was a ever-present undertone of loss. Jack had not been able to locate his friend Fabrizio, and they both had the feeling that he had been one of the hundreds lost to the cold water.

Rose on the other hand knew that her mother had made it to a lifeboat, but was dealing with the strange loss of never seeing her again. An odd limbo of sorts, as Rose herself had ‘died’ aboard Titanic. The officer that had been taking names from the survivors had no idea what he had done when a stroke of the pen had effectively killed her and she had been reborn instead as Rose Dawson.

Jack had been silent during the moment, but the look he had given her had spoken volumes. She was pulled into his arms a moment later and they stayed curled together, kissing sweetly before just relaxing against each other.

 

~~

 

Seeing the Statue of Liberty as the Carpathia pulled past her on the way to Pier 59 was a beacon of hope to Rose and Jack, they watched in silence as they sailed smoothly past in the rainy fog of early April. The pair of them had planned to slip through the hubbub of people disembarking, make their way into the Irish neighborhoods in Hell’s Kitchen, pawning off the pearl earrings that Rose still wore in order to get enough money to survive on for a bit, paper and pencils for Jack, take them to the parks to sell portraits, earn them enough to start their way west.

Rose slipped her hands deeper inside the pockets of Cal’s coat, hunching slightly to escape the rain. Her hand brushed something hard in the depths of the pocket and the clutched at it, pulling forth the diamond bauble that Cal had gifted her with. Stunned, she shoved it back down, lest someone spotted it, glad for the darkness of the ship.

Curious, she patted the other pocket of the coat. If Cal had stuffed the one pocket, chances were, he had emptied the safe into the coat. The outer pockets were empty, but a suspect bulge revealed the inner pocket stuffed with one of the stacks of cash from the safe. At least $2000. Yanking the coat tighter, she glanced over at Jack who had managed to get a suitable coat off of one of the passengers of the Carpathia.

“Jack.” She hissed, trying to get his attention from the person he was talking to, the crowd around them on deck jostling them slightly as they sailed up the Hudson. Many of them were excited to see land again, she did not blame them one bit.

She had no idea now what to do with eh diamond. If Cal thought she was dead, the sudden reappearance of it would have him searching for her, no matter if she sold it or if she somehow managed to send it to her mother. The money on the other hand, that was a another story. That could provide for her and Jack for years to come, provided they were not frivolous with it. It opened up more possibilities for them, that was certain, but she would be the first to say that money wasn’t everything.

“Is something wrong?” Jack asked her when he turned and saw the look of worry on her face. She shook her head before responding. “No, no, its fine. I just..” She pulled him close to her, whispering in his ear about the discovery she had made. His eyes popped open wider and the grin split his face from ear to ear.

“Rose, that’s great!” She could see him start to come to the same conclusions she did about Cal. “We can hide the necklace, we wont sell it. Keep your earrings unless you want to get rid of them. We can still make our way like we planned, use the money when we need to, like tonight, find a place to stay.” The wheels were turning in his head, thinking on how much this would chance for them.

“I still want to make it for the West Coast, the more distance, the better. And we could see where the wind takes us from there. We have a start, we can make it together.” He told her, punctuating it with a kiss, clasping her hand in his. 

Hand in hand, they started out through the crowd of New York, ducking away from the flashbulbs of the reporters gathered at the dock of the Carpathia, disappearing into the night, hopes and dreams keeping them aloft.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m not sure why exactly I had the overwhelming urge to write this for a fandom that really never existed, and 20 years too late really. But I suppose its better late than never. I have always had feelings about Titanic, how just small changes could have altered so much. Reasonings behind why the necklace was kept, how Rose made her way in the world, and yes, Cal did stuff quite a bit of money in his pockets (at least two bundles of 20’s, one of which got tossed back in his face, but at least one more, if not two, must have survived in his pockets. Each bundle would have $2000 and in todays terms, thats nearly $50,000 per bundle) I know this would of course change a few things with the modern setting of the movie, but I may come to that eventually. I have a few ideas rattling around in my head. There was an inordinate amount of research done on really random things in this fic, like how long a reasonably healthy person could survive in 28-32 degree seawater. And yes, a baker from Titanic did last darn near two hours in the water before being rescued and did live. And yes, I did gloss over a few things, like the Carpathia heading for Pier 59. She did, just to drop off lifeboats from Titanic, she then sailed back to her home berth of Dock 54. Still moderately close enough to walk to the Irish sections of NYC (Hell’s Kitchen).  
> Thank you for reading and if you would be so kind, leave a kudos, or feel free to comment if you enjoyed it.


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